Ol' Yellow Eyes
by Scarabbug
Summary: Geordi figured he was never going to get over the day when Data told him that.


**Author's Notes:** Late night inspiration resulted in a late night fic, pardon any grammar errors, no beta, I did spell check, though. Don't take it too seriously. Title taken from Brent Spiner's album _"Ol' Yellow Eyes Is back."_ (Selling on your characterisations, much?) Standard disclaimers apply.

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Ol' Yellow Eyes.

It was his favourite song.

Which was just… incredible. Not the song itself, so much as the fact that it was his favourite.

Geordi figured he was never going to get over the day when Data told him that. _Data_ had a _favourite song_. Favourite as in "requiring-an-emotional-response-to-auditory-stimuli". Funny, how so many of these things suddenly seemed ust as amazing to him as they did to the android in question. But then, maybe he shouldn't be surprised. He'd been inside of Data's head in so many ways, that being able to learn about him through that kind of communication (rather than by having to poke at internal processors in some kind of near life-or-death experience), was something he enjoyed. Because all of a sudden, Data was able to listen to and to tune into those one hundred-odd pieces of simultaneous music his database was capable of analysing at the same time, and _discern_ between them. And that was just…

It was odd, but great at the same time. At least it was, once Geordi had gotten past a) the terrible jokes and bad sense of humour and b) the relief that Data's negative emotions were not as predominant this time as they had been initially… even if there had been a few iffy moments so far and he wasn't looking forwards to when Data decided to relive Tasha's funeral. And he _was_ going to decide to do that some day soon, Geordi could feel it, and that was going to open a _lot_ of floodgates. It was going to hurt, then, reliving everything, one bad memory at a time. So Geordi was going to make the most of the good side of Data's new emotions, while he has the chance.

Had to work on his sense of humour, though.

Anyway. Music.

They actually went through most of the files on the ships computer one evening. Well, Data went through most of them before Geordi had even got there, processing faster than any human ever could. Geordi was still getting used to the idea of emotions in an android just as Data was himself, even though really in many ways, it wasn't all that different. It was more like the chip had opened up something that was already there than introduced anything new. In fact when he ran a level one diagnostic not long after they first arrived on the _Enterprise E_, Geordi had found that a number of Data's positronic pathways had actually _broken down_ rather than developed or changed. Second hand connections and pathways reforming raggedly in their place.

It hadn't done much harm, at least. And Data was too… distracted to notice (another thing which would probably have never happened before). He could now prefer, select, love, avoid, _hate_… countless different sentiments, though he was having a little trouble when it came to processing the hate. According to Data he had run through one hundred and seventy six-distinct emotional states before he even _touched_ on love. Geordi was probably not going to play any more of that _Synthoscope_ group in Data's presence ever again, though. He had totally forgotten that those singers got themselves pulled up in a law suite because they'd…

…Well, as crazy as it still sounded, they'd tapped the echoes and resonances sounding off of a Borg sphere.

Which was insane. Lord knows how they got hold of it. Maybe they had friends in high places (musicians often did) and had bribed someone working bridge on one of the ships. Maybe it was an artificial recording obtained from the static interference the Borg had transmitted during their last assault on earth. Whatever their methods, it had been a ridiculous, crazy and downright stupid stunt and had brought their musical careers crashing down around their speakers.

_And_ it had nearly given Data a heart attack to boot. Metaphorically speaking of course.

Data being quietly scared half to death… not a pretty sight in _anyone_, never mind him.

So no Heavy Metal in Data's quarters. Especially not _Synthoscope._

Jazz was ranked pretty high in Data's favour. Geordi figured that was because of its association with Commander Riker. Whenever he heard a trombone, Geordi instantly made the connection with that a bearded grin himself. Classical is pretty good too. More entertaining if you were playing it, though and could understand the intricacies involved in something that could sometimes be so delicate.

Then there was something called Synth Pop, which had shown up sometime around the early twenty-first century, but hadn't really survived much beyond the post atomic. Maybe because all the synthesisers went out from a lack of electricity. It was apparently just starting to make a comeback and Geordi hadn't even known it _existed_ until Data brought it up. Geordi didn't much care for it. It was too complicated and all encompassing. He hardly considered it a _genre_ at all. There was something Data liked about it, though, even if for the life of him Geordi couldn't figure out what that was.

And musicals. Data was head over heels for musicals, particularly the old-earth classics. Which was a good thing, because now he could actually sing. Well, he could sing _before_, (which had shocked the living hell out of pretty much all the bridge crew the first time) but… not properly. Not with any real…Well, feeling. So Data was big on musicals, especially the nineteen-fifties stuff. Geordi swore that he caught him humming "All That Jazz" once in the Turbo Lift. Data denied it.

He _denied_ it. And that made Geordi grin even more. Because he _knew_ what he heard. This meant that either _Data_ was _denying_ something that was really _true_ (which pretty much amounted to lying), of Geordi must've been going crazy because…

Well, an android doing cabaret to his third favourite song in a turbo lift?

Yeah. That was a believable one.

But anyway, back to the point. Jazz was high up, so was classical, synth pop (which Geordi couldn't abide) held some kind of interest for the android if only in the aesthetic sense… Oh, and he hated Latin.

Which was a problem. But what the heck, Geordi could work around it. He was pretty sure that nobody could hate Latin forever if they're made to listen to it enough…

Data's second favourite song? Now _that_ was a bizarre one.

It was rock. Not the rock and roll type of the early forties, so much as the revolution of the nineteen eighties. The peculiar thing was that Data didn't _like_ most rock. At all. Said it reminded him too much of the dream program, on that occasion when it'd gone haywire and he'd started _screaming_ without meaning to. And yet this time, it seemed, he had made an exception.

But then, this song only seemed to be rock by default, anyway. It was softer than most of them were. It was only the singer that made it sound louder and put the power into it. It was like the song said itself: what the music is didn't come from the song so much as it does from the person singing it.

Data's favourite song, then. Well, that was starting to become one of Geordi's favourites too, even though he wasn't really into the genre. It was just that it was the kind of song he had always _expected_ Data to like. It worked. Sounded right when he caught him humming in the turbo lift. Fit in with what Geordi already knew about the android's nature. Geordi was all up for seeing new personality traits brought about by new developments, and all. But there was definitely something to be said about the _old_ Data.

And he kind likes the sound of "_Embraceable You_" himself. Especially when that Brent Spiner guy is singing it.

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**Reviews and concrit are appreciated. **


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